


Out of Place

by DustToDust



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, ftm Keith, ftm pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 16:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8168822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustToDust/pseuds/DustToDust
Summary: Unconnected drabbles for the series.





	1. Out of Time

The bed is too soft, just like the couch Shiro had woken up on back on Earth. Soft in all the wrong ways, and Shiro can only force himself to lay still for a few minutes before getting up. The floors of the Castle are not as harsh as the cells had been, but they’re hard and make the knots in his spine unknot after only a few seconds. A minor relief as his mind refuses to relax as well.

Night has just fallen on Arus, and even in captivity the nights had been quiet. He thinks so at least. He doesn’t feel any sense of dread or fear at the thought of sleeping, just a thread of tension. Something that’s expectant like he’s supposed to be doing something.

Doing what, he has no idea, but the urge to do it is there and maddening. Shiro lies still for as long as he can, but the erratic tapping of his own fingers on the floor keeps sleep at bay. Sighing, he rolls over onto his hands and toes. Expending the nervous energy out through sets of push-ups.

It’s easy to fall into the familiar rhythm of breathing and motion. An exercise that Shiro thinks he’s been doing most of his life. From school, through pilot training, and even onboard that fateful trip to Kerberos.

The repetition is starting to work, Shiro can feel a creeping sense of tiredness stealing over him, when the alarms go of and the Princess’ voice rings through the Castle warning of an attack.

~

“Wasn’t this supposed to take longer?” Shiro asks, puzzled over why Coran is insisting Lance should be fully healed. When they’d gotten the power back to the Castle yesterday the Princess had been rather firm in her statement that it would take three days to get Lance back onto his feet.

“Well, give or take a few ticks,” Coran says before busying himself with the controls again. Reading off the vitals easily in a way that Shiro reminds himself, again, to have translated for the rest of them. The language barrier with the Castle is worrying.

~

The Castle halls are always nearly silent, but there’s a stillness to them now that surprises Shiro. It’s not until he goes into the darkened common area that he realizes why he feels so alone in the Castle.

The room is dimly lit with a soft blue light that approximates the moonlight of Altea. A programmed night cycle that’s close enough to an Earth day for everyone to set their sleeping patterns by.

Shiro accesses one of the communication panels Pidge has hacked for their use and is disturbed at the time that pops up. 3AM by Earth standards. He stares at the numbers warily and tries to remember what he did after breakfast.

He’s still trying when Keith wanders in several hours later.

~

Their battles are recorded, to the best of the Castle’s abilities. The Princess gives Shiro a blinding smile when he asks to be shown how to review that information, and teaches him all he needs to know in a very short amount of time.

Shiro thanks her for the help and allows her to continue thinking that he wants to see the footage of their last skirmish with a Galra patrol ship in order to plan out strategies for the future.

~

It should worry him, Shiro thinks one day, when he realizes he’s lost a few hours of time. When he’s abruptly confronted with evidence of things he has no memories of doing, or when one of the others gives him a hard time for giving orders twice.

It really should, but it doesn’t. No, what worries Shiro are the times when he doesn’t realize he’s missed any time at all. When there’s no evidence to show him he’s skipped from morning to night at all. It worries him a lot that he has no idea how long it’s been since they left Earth, how long they’ve been fighting in their lions.

It worries him a lot, but there’s really no time to be worried about small things like that. Zarkon isn’t going to defeat himself after all.


	2. Testosterone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FTM!Keith feeling accepted was requested.

“Oh,” Allura says when she finally understands the gist of what Keith is asking.

Keith grits his teeth and refuses to look over at the Princess. Not wanting to see whatever expression it is she’s wearing. He’s had more than enough of that his whole life and doesn’t need any more now on top of everything else. He keeps his attention focused on Coran who’s looking thoughtful thankfully.

If he’d had his way, Keith would have approached Coran when he was alone. His question awkward enough without an audience, but the two Alteans have been inseparable the past week. He couldn’t put it off for longer though. Fatigue had been hammering him hard the past few days, and even Lance was going out of his way to avoid antagonizing him.

“So your body doesn’t produce the hormones you need. Interesting!” Coran nods and looks like he’s about to wander off into another tale of his childhood but something in Keith’s expression seems to stop him. The man clears his throat before saying, “Oh, of course we can mix up a batch of what you need! It doesn’t take a doctor to do that with the technology we have. Why if you want, I could just-”

“Call Shiro down for a scan,” Allura cuts in. Both as an offering of what to do and an order to the nearest control panel which beeps in response. Allura smiles when Keith finally looks over at her. Light and caring in the way her smiles always are when they’re not irritating her. “I don’t think Altean and Earthian biologies are all that compatible. So it’d be best if we isolated this testosterone in one of your fellow Paladins before beginning to replicate it.”

There is nothing in either Altean’s faces to make Keith want to step back and put his guard up. No confusion or disgust or condemnation. Nothing of what he’s used to seeing in people back on Earth.

“Thanks,” the brief answer comes out rougher than he’d like as Keith crosses his arms over his bound chest and looks at a wall for a bit. Until the tightness in his chest loosens a bit.


	3. Dinner

Hunk’s not a chef or anything, but he does love food and when you love food the way he does it’s not hard to know what kind of things go together to make a perfect stew.

“No way! Is that thing bleeding green!? I’m not eating that!” Lance shouts from the vicinity of where Keith is butchering the animal he caught earlier. Hunk looks up from peeling the fluorescent yellow tubers he dug up in time to see him get pushed back by an irritated Keith.

“Lance,” Shiro cuts in before the two can work themselves up into one of their –hourly– fights. “We need water for the-”

“Were these what you were talking about, Hunk?” Pidge shows up with a handful of plants, and Hunk ignores the rest of what Shiro’s saying. The leaves are triangular and smell kinda like garlic or onion, and the roots are thick and bulb shaped. Hunks still not sure if the roots are edible yet, but the leaves he knows are good.

“Yeah, these’ll be perfect,” Hunk points to the bowl holding the few plants he found earlier. They smell like garlic, but they give off a peppery taste when chewed. Which is probably going to be all the spices they get on this planet.

Coran sniffs loudly from across the camp fire. Steadily eating the slimy yellow goop that comes out of the fruit that seems to grow everywhere around the planet. He’s made if very clear how little he thinks of their eating habits, but the old man can stuff his face with fruit all he wants. No way is Hunk ever going to let that stuff near his stomach again. It might smell like pineapples, but the taste was all sweaty gym socks.

“Will we have enough?” Allura asks as she finishes peeling the last tuber from her pile. Her now yellow stained fingers surprisingly deft for being royalty.

“Yep! That’s what’s great about stew,” Hunk finishes his last tuber and sets it aside to wait for the water to come back. A starch, a meat, and some spices. Cook that long enough in plenty of water and you could make any amount of supplies last longer than they should. “It’s made for sharing with a lot of people.”

Shiro brings back a container of greenish meat, and from beyond the trees Hunk can hear Lance and Keith arguing on their way back with the water. His stomach growls in anticipation and Hunk grins at the fire. “Just you wait, Princess, this dinner will blow you away.”


	4. Oops

"Oops," Lance says with a grin that Pidge wants to wipe off his face with the kind of voltage that is only a little harmful to humans. If that wouldn't end up sending them both plummeting to their inevitably messy deaths at the bottom of the elevator shaft they dove into from cover that is.

"'Oops' doesn't cover flirting with the enemy, idiot!" Pidge grits out as his fingers slip a little in the paneling that he opened earlier. The armor of the suit the only thing saving his fingers from a nasty cut. Lance's grip shifts worryingly but Pidge doesn't pay it any mind. This field dampener or whatever the Galra have up that's blocking all functions on their suits has to go before the drones break through the door or Lance looses his balance.

"Hey, I wasn't flirting!" Lance denies and mutters something Pidge doesn't pay any mind to. It's lost under the sound of the rending of metal as the door just above them starts to give. There's a hint of strain on Lance's face but no hint of guilt what so ever. Typical. "I can't help it if the ladies find my rugged good looks so distracting."

" _Galra_ ladies," Pidge reminds him dryly and then grins as the programing starts to unravel under his fingers. Even with the minute lost in translation for language difference, there's nothing that Pidge can't crack. It really is kind of insulting how the Galra haven't even thought to improve or change their defenses.

"Hey, I'm no-" Lance grunts and Pidge sucks in a breathe as they both teeter perilously out over open air for a few heart stopping seconds before Lance does something to slam himself back into the wall. There's definite strain in his voice when he continues. "I'm no racist, I like all the ladies no matter what species they are."

Pidges's eyes would roll but the barrier gives with a crackle that he almost feels and their comms snap back on with a loudness that makes him flinch. The suits come back online fully just as the doors finally give, and Lance laughs as he shoots the first wave of droids. Giving Pidge just enough room to activate the boosters on the suit and gain a foothold back on the ground floor.


	5. Understanding

They are and are not the same in ways that Allura can’t quite verbalize, but she doesn’t need to explain their interactions to anyone else. Not even to herself.

Allura leaves the echoingly empty room that had once housed the memories of her father raw and sore, and is not surprised to find the Green Lion’s Paladin waiting there for her. Fidgeting with some of the cobbled together electronics that they always have with them. Something to keep the hands busy so the mind could follow suit. Allura is well versed in the tactic.

“Pidge,” Allura acknowledges and doesn’t think the Paladin was too busy to notice her leave. “How can I help you?”

When Pidge looks up the light of hall catches their glasses and turns them opaque so that Allura cannot see the considering gaze that she feels. A lightning fast assessing thing that she could take as invasive but does not. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

The request is gentle but Allura’s smile still feels brittle. The loss of her father weighs even heavier now than it had before when she first fell out of stasis. Somehow, having the AI of him around has made the pain of knowing he is beyond her reach even worse. It’s a pain that Pidge knows well. Their own father and brother exist still in that nebulous place of being and not being at the same time.

“Thank you, but no,” Allura says firmly and catches the quirk of Pidge’s understanding smile. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

The question is painfully formal, like many of her words these days, but Pidge accepts them at face value. “Actually, yes,” Pidge holds up what they have been tinkering with for who knows how long, and Allura can see the scrolling text of Earthian writing on it. “I’m working on a dual language program for the Castle to run in cases of emergency. Think you can lend me a hand with translating stuff?”

“Yes, I can do that,” Allura smiles and feels grateful for the Green Paladin. For the silent understanding that she does not ever have to voice between the two of them. Busy hands mean busy minds and Allura knows that the kind of rehaul to the systems Pidge is looking to undertake will not be a trivial matter solved in a few ticks. “Thank you, Pidge.”

“No problem, Allura,” Pidge responds and this time she can see their eyes crinkle with the smile they give her. It’s almost more comfort than she can handle, but Allura takes a deep breath and focuses on the problem at hand.


End file.
